


Flipping the Chessboard

by Kei (adakie)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Game, Biotechnology, Broken Moirallegiance, Except not quite, Gen, Sollux's bees - Freeform, more characters will appear later on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 20:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13842867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adakie/pseuds/Kei
Summary: The game wouldn't save their world.  It would end it.  Had ended it.  Would end it again and again and again no matter how many times they played this stupid fucking deathgame.  Because it wasn't even …'iit'2 not real'





	Flipping the Chessboard

**Author's Note:**

> So, it was my birthday yesterday. Yay? And I wanted to do a little something for myself to celebrate. That meant, in this case, writing a fic I’ve been wanting to write for so very long now. And I figured, since I like how this turned out, I should post it on the off chance anyone else might like it too. There's more to it that I might get to depending on if anyone other than me would be interested. (and if anyone wanted to know, I've posted on tumblr as well over at ashadowcalledkei) Thanks for reading~.

It looked so simple.  Just a dark door set in a towering structure of blocky shapes marked with that same twelve-fold symbol and adorned with a single glowing sphere of deep, swirling blues.  Hardly a grand proclamation of victory against seemingly impossible odds.  Yet, that was exactly the purpose it was there to serve.    
  
They had won.  The black king lay defeated on the ruins of the battlefield, his fearsome world-ending cry now silenced, the shattered remnants of his scepter left to rust.  Carapacian soldiers wandered aimless amidst the ruins, white and black both lost without the monarchs that had guided them.  They had earned their victory with blood and sacrifice and more than anyone's fair share of luck, and in doing so had left ruin in their wake.    
  
Sollux Captor didn't spare a glance for the wreckage far below.  He'd seen it all before, the smoking craters and fallen bodies stained with their strange, bright blood.  That sight would always be with him, lurking in his daymares.  There was no need to take it in again.    
  
He stood with his friends in their breathless relief, looking up with weary smiles at the strange blue shape that announced their victory.  The portal through which they would find the new universe that was their hard won prize.  The salvation of their race.  Or at least, that's what they were meant to believe.  Sollux knew better.    
  
He inched back from the others a bit, uncomfortably surrounded by doomed copies of his once-moirail's robotic shell.  It made him sick to look at them all lined up like tin soldiers waiting to die, interchangeable and utterly disposable.  But they weren't.  She wasn't.  Or at least, she shouldn't have been.  But there'd been no other choice, she had said as much herself.  They were just copies of her from doomed timelines anyway, slated to die one way or another.   Remnants of decisions made which failed to satisfy the omniscient forces which governed their very existence and the uncountable potential pathways those decisions might have lead to.  They didn't truly exist beyond their potential to have once existed, so they didn't matter.  Except that they did.  They were expendable.  Except that they weren't.  Because they were still, in some small way, HER.  And that was something Sollux could never allow himself to ignore.    
  
Someone let out a shaky laugh, not quite breaking the tension that lay thick over their party but at least easing it somewhat.  Knowing looks and wide grins were cast about.  He tried to smile too, but it was a hollow imitation of his normal, confident smirk.  He knew what was coming.  
  
Karkat reached out slowly as little wisps of energy danced around the seemingly innocent sphere that marked their door, light leaping out to touch his trembling hand in bright arcs of blue.  Sollux was all too familiar with those shining arcs.  And yet, it still surprised him when, amidst those glimmering strands of blue, he saw the briefest flash of …  
  
r͟e̡̕͝d͢   
  
 W͍̤͕̖̮̞̪̗a͏̣̳͓̫̳͟ͅi̛͖͕̞t̯̝̻,͖̰̝ ̨̡̰̺̮̫n̵̷̩̜̯̥̻o̠͚͠͠.̢̻͖̭̯͠   
  
N̸̬͇̹̟o̘̰͚͇͇͘͡͡t̵̩̫̝̜͈̣̩͢ ̶̨̯͈̰̺͉̟̹͚̜͝y͏̬̘͙̣̩͡e͎̻̼̳t̸͕͇̪̬͈ͅͅ!̗̮̕͢   
  
̲͘.͏̧̹̭͍ ̥̘̣͈̲͝.͏̧̘ ̟̠̪͕.̵̪͘ ̨͕̩͝.̩͈͚͔̺̞̲ͅ ̰͙͍͘.̠ ̮͉̮͜.̯̲ ̶̡̤̪̖͍͉̜͡   
  
  
01110011 01111001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01101101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01101001 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100   
  
  
646973636f6e6e656374696e6720696e707574  
  
303131303131303120303131303031303120303131303131303120303131303131313120303131313030313020303131313130303120303031303030303020303131313031313120303131303130303120303131313030303020303131303031303120303031303030303020303131303130303120303131303131313020303131303130303120303131313031303020303131303130303120303131303030303120303131313031303020303131303031303120303131303031303020  
  
636865636b696e6720626173652073797374656d20706172616d6574657273  
  
696e707574206c696e6b20726565737461626c6973686564  
  
  
  
01110010 01100101 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111   
  
  
Sollux woke up with a silent scream lodged in his chest.  His head ached as he pulled himself out of the sopor, echos of the sharp bite of psionic backlash making themselves known.  He tasted ozone on his tongue.    
  
He stumbled, barely catching himself on the rim of his recuperacoon as the world seemed to pitch at impossible angles.  Nothing like starting a new night with a pan-splitting migraine.  Just perfect.  He grumbled under his breath, spitting half-hearted curses at nothing in particular, as he left a trail of blue slime splotches across his respiteblock floor.  He'd clean it up some other time.  Or not.  Not like it matters anyway.  Besides, he's got better things to do with his time.  Like … what was it again?  Ooh, right.  The project Aradia wanted him to do.  The game.  Wow he must really be out of it to forget something as important as AA's plan to try and save their … world …   
  
No.  No, that wasn't right.  The game wouldn't save their world.  It would end it.  But, that wasn't what she'd said.  She'd said … what was it again?    
  
He tugged on the nearest articles of clothing he could find that weren't already crusted with mystery stains, not caring or even noticing how the dark fabric became instantly sticky with residual sopor, and all but collapsed into his well worn computer chair.  The bees hummed away in their mainframe, pleasantly muffled by thick layers of carefully structured silicomb.  The sound rose in pitch and volume as he powered up the system, just like normal.  It was reliable.  Soothing.  Almost enough to distract him from the constant pulsing pain in his head.    
  
It was kind of strange actually, he normally only felt his bad on the tail end of a particularly intense coding binge.  His thoughts would race so fast he could hardly keep up with them and he'd surrender to that manic energy, letting it drag him along for nights and days of furious productivity until the inevitable crash rendered him a useless wreck.  That was all perfectly normal.  But the thing was, he couldn't remember indulging in that kind of coding binge lately.  He checked his files, unsure of what to expect, and found nothing amiss.  Certainly no unexpected new dump of frantically scrawled code waiting to be cleaned up and made usable.  So why did he feel like he'd been run over by a heard of hoofbeasts?  
  
A blur of purple on the edge of his vision pulled his attention away from the screen.  Some of his bees were out of their mainframe.  That wasn't uncommon either.  He was used to their constant company as they flew about the room.  Sometimes, in his lower moods when he couldn't bring himself to do anything more strenuous than breathe, he'd watch them buzz around for hours on end, taking comfort in their presence.  They were easy to care for when you knew how to listen to them.  A good swarm is always quick to tell you what they need in their subtle way.    
  
The bees flew in precise patterns, arcs and curves which the untrained eye would easily mistake for lazy circles but which Sollux could read just as easily as any typed out code.  The buzzing of their wings rose and fell in time with the steps of this areal dance.  The patterns repeated, paused, and repeated again, spelling out not a normal systems update or even a distress call but something entirely different; a message in his own typing quirk.    
  
'iit'2 not real'  
  
His pulse quickened, barely restrained fear making his blood race and the rhythmic drum of pain behind his eyes speed up to match.  No.  No no no.  He had to have translated that wrong.  Or maybe he was still dreaming and this was just a particularly realistic daymare.    
  
'2iimulatiion'  
  
Nope.  No way.  This was nothing but a stupid dream that he couldn't seem to shake off no matter how many times he pinched or zapped himself.  Why couldn't he just wake up already?!  
  
'2he's not dead'  
  
Sollux jerked backwards, standing so quickly that his chair toppled over and crashed onto the garbage-strewn floor.  His bloodpusher felt like a cold lump of ice lodged in his chest.  This had to be some kind of cruel joke.  Maybe revenge from one of the nameless assholes he'd sent experimental viruses to when he was feeling particularly vindictive, which was, admittedly, at least half the time.  But, it couldn't be them.  Because how would they know about … her?  Sollux swallowed hard, fighting back the choking sensation of panic trying to take hold of him.  There was a logical answer to everything if you knew where to look.  He just had to find it.    
  
'iit'2 not real', the bees spelled out again, taking turns to dart in front of his face and deliver their cryptic messages.  '2iimulatiion.  iit'2 not real.'  It was strange to see them so insistent about anything that wasn't a threat to the colony.  But then, it was strange to see them deliver any sort of message at all.  It would take someone with a lot of skill and familiarity with the workings of an apiculture network to manage that little trick.  Sollux didn't know of anyone who could pull it off except himself.  And he certainly hadn't … or … had he?  He didn't remember coding any sort of message delivery system into the hive.  It wasn't something he'd ever even considered, having far more practical methods to deliver any necessary reminders he might need.  But, he knew just how he'd do it.  He could see it all so clearly in his mind, how to write out the winding string of beenary code and exactly where to place it in order to make the workers prioritize the new instructions.  He could almost … almost … remember …  
  
A high pitched hum accompanied another string of code, this one longer and more complex than the last.  This one didn't translate as cleanly as the others.  In fact it didn't seem to suit standard letters at all, even with quirks taken into consideration.  That left it as either a meaningless of numbers, possible but unlikely considering the circumstances, or it was meant to be left as it was; code.    
  
Sollux kicked his fallen chair out of the way.  He didn't look at the screen as he typed, his chipped claws flying across the keys at blinding speed.  He watched the bees instead, taking note of each dip and curve, each one and zero, afraid to so much as blink lest he miss something vital.  The dance stretched on and on until at last it stopped, the bees responsible retreating to their hive while others flew up to take their place and begin again.  Sollux kept going.  He copied the code once more, nimble fingers racing to keep up, until the second swarm also retired to the hive.    
  
He'd been half expecting the end result of all this frantic decoding to be a jumbled mess, and at first that's what it seemed to be.  That is, until he read a bit further and saw how things slowly began to fall into place.  It really was a code, and almost exactly like one of his.  The language of it, the structure and loops and backdoor double reacharound failsafes, it all read just like something he would create.  It was more involved that most of his work, but only because he favored the simple elegance of a well placed kick in the figurative teeth.  And more restrained as well, focused more on subtle subterfuge than outright destruction.  But it wasn't like he hadn't done his share of that in the past when information gathering and sabotage were more likely to produce the desired result than brute force.  There was just one thing he couldn't quite make sense of in it; the targets.  
  
One target was simple if a bit unsettling; himself.  But he'd used his own existence as a variable in coding viruses before.  It was tricky and at times unsafe, but hell, that was ~ATH.  He wouldn't use it if he wasn't willing to take the risk.  It was the other component that truly set off his mental warning bells.  It almost looked like the remaining target was the universe itself, but then there was a secondary designation that didn't seem to fit that theory.  A false universe?    
  
'iit'2 not real', that's what the bees had said.  That's the message that the coding had told them to relay.  His words.  His code?  Probably, but how could he be sure?  The simple answer was; he couldn't.    
  
With one final keystroke, he compiled the program.  The muffled hum from the mainframe roared to a fever pitch as the code took hold.  The virus executed.    
  
Sollux stepped unsteadily back, staring at the glowing screen without truly seeing any of the information it displayed.  Strings of code and text sped by almost too fast to see.  But he didn't need to see it.  The virus had unlocked something that went far beyond what simple text could show.  
  
It came to him slowly, bit by bit like drops of water slowly filling a bowl.  Each new fragment lead to the next as the memories he shouldn't have knit themselves back together.  A passing phrase.  A knowing look.  Another world.  Lurking imps with sharp claws and too many eyes.  Pain that stretches on forever as it tears you apart from the inside.  Dew and Glass.  Brains and Fire.  Blood and death.  A door.  The door.  That fucking door.    
  
The game wouldn't save their world.  It would end it.  Had ended it.  Would end it again and again and again no matter how many times they played this stupid fucking deathgame.  Because it wasn't even …   
  
A soft buzz just slightly out of sync with the rest of the hive called insistently for his attention.  He looked down to see a single bee crawling up his arm.  It buzzed again and took flight, hovering around his shoulder as it flew in careful, precise movements.  The sound modulated with its motions, humming along with the message it had brought him.  
  
'Are you awake?'  
  
  
  
He hadn't programmed this message.  
  
  
  
He remembered programming the others now.  Remembered coding the first in a frantic and seemingly futile attempt to keep himself from forgetting the things they didn't want him to find.  Remembered trying to ignore it just the way he'd done this time until he'd finally accepted that maybe something more was going on.  But this?  This wasn't him.    
  
The little bee let out a low, droning buzz and began again.  'Are you awake?'  
  
Sollux drew in a trembling breath.    
  
“Yes.”  
  
  
The bee shuddered and hummed, hovering in mid air as if in thought.  Then, it began to spell out something new.    
  



End file.
